The present invention is directed in general to communications systems for vehicles and more specifically, to a method and apparatus for establishing and controlling the communications between a vehicle and a remote site, e.g., a monitoring and diagnostic service center.
Establishing, maintaining and managing a communications link between a mobile asset (e.g., an on-road, off-road or rail-based vehicle) can provide opportunities for cost-saving operation through efficient vehicle dispatching and the remote acquisition of vehicle performance information. As applied to railroad operations, cost-efficiency requires minimization of locomotive down time and especially the avoidance of line-of-road locomotive failures. Failure of a major locomotive system can cause serious damage, require costly repairs, and introduce significant operational delays in the railroad transportation network. A line-of-road failure is an especially costly event as it requires dispatching a replacement locomotive to pull the train consist rendering a track segment unusable until the disabled train is removed. As a result, the health of the locomotive engine and its constituent subassemblies is of significant concern to the railroad operator.
In the past, there has been no automatic or systematic mechanism for locomotive fault detection. Instead, the railroad operator relies primarily on regular inspections and the observation of performance anomalies by the locomotive operator. Some cursory inspection processes are accomplished while the locomotive is in service. More thorough inspections require the locomotive to be taken out of service for several days. Any locomotive down time, whether for inspection or repair, represents a significant railroad cost that advantageously should be minimized. The same generic inspections processes are applied to off-road, on-road, and other rail-based vehicles.
One such apparatus for detecting faults and thereby hopefully minimizing locomotive down time is an on-board monitor that measures performance and faul-trelated operational parameters of the locomotive or other mobile asset during operation. Off-board analysis of this information can provide timely indications of actual and expected component failures. With timely and nearly continuous access to locomotive performance data, it is now possible for locomotive repair experts to predict and/or prevent untimely failures. The on-board monitor collects, aggregates and communicates locomotive performance and fault related data from an operating locomotive to a monitoring and diagnostic center. The data may be collected periodically or as required by various triggering events occurring during locomotive operation. Generally, anomalous or fault data is brought to the attention of the locomotive operator directly by the locomotive systems, but the locomotive itself lacks the necessary hardware and software devices to diagnose the fault. It is therefore, advantageous to utilize the on-board monitor to collect and aggregate the information and at the appropriate time, send the information to a monitoring and diagnostic service center. Upon receipt of the performance data at the monitoring and diagnostic service center, computer based data analysis tools analyze the data to identify the root cause of potential or actual faults. Also, experts in locomotive maintenance and operation analyze the received data to prepare recommendations for preventive maintenance or to correct existing faults or anomalous conditions.
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for commissioning the communications system installed on board an off-road, on-road or rail-based vehicle so that the vehicle number is associated with the unique communications identifier or telephone number assigned to the communications system installed on the vehicle. Once commissioned, the communications system can establish a link between the operating vehicle and a remote site for the purpose of transmitting fault, operational parametric and location information from the vehicle to the remote site and for uploading control information and instructions in the reverse direction.
The process of providing communications services to a remotely located vehicle requires the initialization, configuration and synchronization of several different systems and databases. The present invention establishes an automatic commissioning process for accomplishing these tasks.
The present invention further includes control system algorithms for handling specific communications events between the vehicle and the remote site. These algorithms provide a communications system that is more robust and reliable and less susceptible to fault.